Rescue workers in the devastated Libyan city of Derna have appealed for more body bags after catastrophic flooding killed thousands of people and washed many more into the sea.
International aid is slowly starting to arrive in the port city after Storm Daniel hit Libya’s northern coast on Saturday night. It is feared that as many as 20,000 people died. “We actually need teams specialized in recovering bodies,” Derna Mayor Abdulmenam al-Ghaithi said. “I fear that the city will be infected with an epidemic because of the large number of bodies under the ruins and in the water.” Lutfi al-Misrati, director of the search team, told Al Jazeera: “We need body bags.”
Earlier, Hichem Abu Chkiouat, the minister of civil aviation in the administration that runs eastern Libya, said that “the sea keeps throwing up tens of bodies”. Marine patrols are working along the coast trying to locate the bodies, many of which have been taken to Tobruk for potential identification. “The bodies are everywhere, in houses, on the streets, in the sea. Wherever you go, you will come across dead men, women and children,” Emad al-Falah, an aid worker in Benghazi, told The Associated Press.
“Entire families have disappeared.”
Such was the need to bury the bodies as soon as possible to avoid the spread of disease that hundreds were buried together in one grave. Residents of Derna pushed for a new field hospital as two existing hospitals in the city became makeshift morgues.
Rescue teams arrived from Egypt, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Qatar, Mayor al-Ghaithi said. Turkey is also sending a ship with equipment to set up two field hospitals and 148 medical personnel to help with the rescue. The UK announced an initial aid package of up to £1 million on Wednesday.
The Tripoli-based UN-recognised government of national unity said on Wednesday that 12 countries had sent aid and rescue teams to Libya. Their Facebook profile states that the assistance includes rescue teams, sniffer dogs, field hospitals, medical teams, thermal sensing devices, diving and suction teams, food supplies, shelter materials, and ships and planes to assist in the recovery process.
The death toll in the city could reach between 18,000 and 20,000, a number arrived at based on the number of districts destroyed by floods, Al-Ghaithi told Saudi Al Arabiya television.
Among the victims of the flood are tens of Egyptian migrants whose bodies arrived on Wednesday transported to Beni Suef, about 110 km south of Cairo, Egyptian media reported. There are concerns that Derna and neighboring Sousse, due to their proximity to Italy and Greece, have been hubs for thousands of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean, many of them in poor housing near the port.
Humanitarian agencies are barely able to reach Derna due to damaged roads. They need helicopters, mostly from Egypt.
Mohamed Eljarh, a Libyan journalist traveling in Derna, said rescuers had yet to reach some parts of the city, especially in the east, as well as the nearby coastal city of Soussa and the al-Sahel municipality.
“Until late last night, pleas were coming in from survivors who are under the rubble,” Eljar told the Guardian, speaking from the nearby city of Tobruk.
He described the situation in Sousse and the surrounding villages as “a new tragic episode”.
“Hundreds of homes are buried by mud, debris and water. Help has not arrived yet,” he said. “It is similar to other affected areas. The death toll will be staggering.”
Usama Al Husadi, a 52-year-old driver, has been searching for his wife and five children since the disaster. “I went on foot looking for them… I visited all the hospitals and schools, but no luck,” he told Reuters, crying with his head in his hands.
Husadi, who was working the night shift during the storm, dialed his wife’s phone number one more time. He was turned off. “We lost at least 50 family members, missing and dead,” he said.
“I survived with my wife, but I lost my sister,” said Mohamed Mohsen Bujmila, a 41-year-old engineer. “My sister lives in the city center where most of the destruction happened. We found the bodies of her husband and son and buried them.”
Source: Reuters, Al Jazeera,
